we should just kiss (like real people do)
by Imaginemotherofdragons
Summary: kanej first kiss as requested by @nacho-artist on tumblr! title from hozier's "like real people do"


Kaz Brekker was used to being lonely. It was his constant state of being, of course he had grown used to it. He barely even remembered when he had feared the emptiness. He knew, logically, that there had been such a time, but it had long since faded.

Sharp edges dulled until he could no longer feel the ache. Loneliness, much like hate, was an even more reliable crutch then the crow's headed cane Dirtyhands' was known for.

Lonely. It was a word that could be screamed in the whirlwind of anguish or whispered amongst the cold talons of terror. It was a ferocious nagging pit at the bottom of his stomach. It was something that reassured Kaz in its endlessness.

He hated it.

He needed it.

And that made it all the more shattering when he began to enjoy the company of a fierce Suli girl.

When he found himself looking forward to the late night stake-outs, so long as his Wraith was near. When he felt that faint sense of relief as he realized those delicate hands, with their deadly aim, were guarding his back.

That was when Kaz began to realize just how well and truly fucked he was.

It was also when he'd stopped fighting it. When he'd begun to let her slip beneath his armor, when they'd started whatever this was.

Kaz would be lying if he said Inej hadn't been in his thoughts. In the months since The Wraith had sailed out of the Ketterdam ports she had stayed at the forefront of his mind. Had made a place there, unshakable and undeniable. Sometimes he wondered if she was more of a solid presence there in his head then when she was standing beside him.

He hated the thought.

To beat back that particular insecurity Kaz let his imagination roam, let himself imagine calling to her from the dock, sweeping her up into his arms and watching as that smile lit up her face. He imagined the surprise and delight he would find there, how her mouth would drift towards his in a soft hesitant sort of way, his own desperate to follow.

Kaz imagined kissing Inej and feeling the warm, soft skin of her lips part under his own.

He wondered, thoughts anything but absent, how she would taste, if she would arch into his touch with that otherworldly grace. Would she slide her hands along his shoulders, murmur something against his mouth? Would she let his hands rest on her hips, steadying never confining?

But most of all Kaz wondered if it would ever happen outside these snippets of a fantasy.

The letter Anika had delivered earlier that morning sat on his desk. Kaz had run his fingers over it half a dozen times, but hadn't yet worked up the nerve to open it.

It was her handwriting, swooping and bold, his name spelled carefully, the only evidence of the swaying ship she wrote on the smudge of ink just below the first "e".

If she told him she'd be gone for awhile there wasn't anything he could do about it, Kaz would simply have to endure. And if Inej told him she would be home by months end there wasn't anything he could do about that either. Except maybe panic. Or tell Jes and go out celebrating.

Perhaps both would do.

It took a remarkable amount of restraint to keep his glove-less hands from trembling as he grabbed the letter and ran the tip of his blade through the end of it. A small scrap of faded paper fell from the envelope's confines, drifted to rest on the edge of his desk, and he couldn't keep his fingers from snatching at it quickly, almost greedily.

His eyes roved over the handful of sentences in a similar manner, searching and hungry, like a starving dog who's finally been kicked a bone.

Kaz paused, re-read the date she was expecting her ship to be in its dock by. Checked today's date even though he's well aware of it, and checked it again just in case it's somehow changed. Of course it hasn't.

Two days.

Inej would be back in Ketterdam in two days. And he wasn't ready, didn't know how to respond to this, was torn between going out and doing something reckless and falling victim to a fit of twisted laughter.

Because he wanted to kiss her, had told himself that when she returned, if she was willing, he would try. Would attempt to set aside his demons.

He'd been doing well enough before she left that it didn't seem like a ridiculous promise to make. Now, after three months, doubt and insecurity had worked him over. Had left his vows on unsteady ground, shaky and full of holes.

Kaz could do it. Certainly. But he didn't want to do it just for the sake of doing it, didn't want it to be something either of them would grow to regret. No, he wouldn't let it happen like that.

He just wasn't sure how else it could.

⁂

The days passed too quickly and soon enough someone was informing him that The Wraith was home.

And in the end he didn't greet her at the dock, didn't sweep her into his arms because he wasn't some fairytale prince and she wasn't a princess. Kaz stayed in his office instead. Jesper was the only one who noticed, who asked him why he was moping, but a well timed glare had his mouth snapping shut, and Kaz's peace restored.

He wasn't moping and he definitely wasn't hiding.

Kaz just needed a single Saint's forsaken second to fucking think. And apparently that was too much to ask for. He hadn't slept since he'd opened her letter and it was finally catching up with him, weighing down his movements and making each blink slower, more sluggish than the last.

Maybe resting wasn't the worst idea.

⁂

He woke to a hazy memory of the quiet, warming presence of Inej. A blanket had been draped over his shoulders, his cheek pressed against the solid oak desk where he'd unceremoniously fallen asleep. The smell of sea-salt and teak lingering from wherever it was Inej's hands had touched.

She had come to him, then. When he had proved too cowardly to cross the distance time had breached between them, Inej hadn't faltered, hadn't let him wander too far into the darkness that lived inside.

She had come for him as he once had for her and suddenly Kaz was wide awake, on his feet. His hand wrapped firmly around his cane, he strode out into the hall, his footsteps echoing like those of a man who had reclaimed his purpose.

⁂

He found her quickly, perched on a stool and talking with a handful of new recruits, all of whom were enthralled in any tale someone as infamous as she had to tell. But the crowd was quick to thin out as he stood beside her.

And then she had to turn, had to smile at him.

Kaz had long since realized he would never be immune to that smile. It was bottled sunshine and unguarded laughter, a heady high that he could never replace with anything else. Wouldn't even want to try.

"Brekker."

"Ghafa."

"You've been busy, corrupting the city's youth." Her chin jerked to those in question.

"When am I not?"

Inej hummed in acquiescence, amusement sparkling in her eyes.

"Are you finished here?"

"Why? Do I have plans elsewhere?"

"If you'd like."

Intrigue now twinning with her mirth, Inej stood and followed him back up the stairs, toward his office.

⁂

"I didn't meet you."

"I know." And her tone is careful, too careful for him to be sure what she's thinking. Inej sat at his desk, a fingertip scratching against the hilt of the knife at her belt. Sankt Lizabeta, if Kaz remembered correctly.

"I wasn't sure it would be the same anymore."

"You thought it would be too hard."

Yes. Yes he did. "No. I thought it would be different, that it would've changed."

"Has it?" She asked, no judgement in her tone, just a steady kind of curiosity, like she already knew the answer and was just waiting for him to confirm.

"I don't think so." And this time when Inej smiled at him, Kaz offered her one in return, an albeit duller more shapeless thing but hers all the same.

He leaned against the desk, close enough to touch, not that he does not yet, and Inej tilted her head back to meet his gaze head-on. She looked alright, Kaz noted with more than a bit of relief, a little tired but whole and safe. Intact.

"I wanted to try something, when you came back. If you wanted to."

"And instead of asking me, you decided to mope?" There's too much teasing now and Kaz frowned irritably.

"Jesper's a dead man."

Inej chuckled quietly and then - "Ask me."

And staring at her, the curve of her throat, that spark of life in her eyes, the glistening black braid that followed her wherever she went, it was all Kaz wanted to do.

"Can I kiss you?" His voice rasped heavier than usual, hung between them like the jagged, wild thing that it was.

Inej's eyes widened, not in shock but in something else. Something like anticipation and fear and excitement. A visual parallel to the emotions that crashed into him as she murmured, "Yes."

Kaz didn't know if a more vital, more gutting word could ever be said. Didn't want to.

His hands shook as they brushed a stray strand of oil black hair off her cheek, careful and cautious, he waited for the other shoe to drop. For some unknown to manifest itself and shatter the moment.

When nothing happened beyond the slight hitch to Inej's breaths, his own heart speeding up in response, Kaz let his gloved hands cup her face entirely. He didn't flinch when her fingers spread across his forearms, steadying and warm and so very alive.

She pushed up onto her knees in his chair, closing most of the distance between them, leaving only a few inches, a final chance for him to pull back.

He didn't.

Kaz pressed his lips against Inej's. A moment of foolhardy bravery, the childish feeling of if I do it quick enough it can't hurt me. Like touching a flame and pulling away before you felt the sting.

Except Inej wasn't a flame.

She was wildfire, devouring him whole and leaving something bright, something better in her wake.

He didn't want to pull away now. Inej's lips moved, soft and reassuring yet burning and full of something that made him ache. A living breathing contradiction that's what she made him into, his Wraith.

And when she did break them apart, a panted breath parting her lips, her hands didn't leave their place. Simply squeezed gently, even as her collarbones flushed a dark intoxicating color that Kaz hurried to memorize.

"How was that?"

Better than anything he had a right to, if he was honest. His gloved thumb swiped the arc of her cheekbone carefully, still somehow testing, "Perfect, I think."

Inej blinked, relief lighting her expression as she whispered, "I think that I could get used to this kind of perfection, then."

It scared him, near as much as it tantalized, the realization that maybe he could too.


End file.
